Sensitive data for more than 4,000,000 people was lost by Government depts in the past year, on top of the high profile loss of child benefit records.

"Following the loss of details for 25 million child benefit claimants in November, Whitehall departments have begun including information on personal information losses in their annual financial statements.

Analysis shows that beyond the child benefit fiasco, Government departments were last year losing data at the rate of more than 300,000 people's details a month in the year to April it emerged last night.

Among the losses were the National Insurance numbers of 17,000 people and the theft of a laptop with encrypted details of 17,000 Sats markers, the BBC reported."